Stuck In Committee

This past weekend, I attended two more receptions and during the drives, worked on committee letters.

The Committee letters are turning out to be a lot of work, which would seem surprising when all of these committees have been in existences for years and you would think that their duties and the expectations for their members would be well established.  But I have discovered that it is not that simple.

To begin with, over the years, some committees have come up with pretty good ways of fulfilling their duties to make their work and their interactions with other members and the Grand Chapter session smooth and relatively pain free.  Unfortunately, those processes are not written down anywhere, so sometimes when the composition of the committee turns over (since some committees only serve for one year and can be replaced in their entirety if the WGM so desires) the new people don't know how anything is done and then they are left floundering around and the results are seriously less than satisfactory.

Then there are some committees where they used to have a stated purpose and/or process, but over the years, the committee stopped doing its purpose so when people come on the committee, they seem to have no idea what to do or what is expected of them.  Some of these committees are simply obsolete and should be cut down to little or nothing, but since it takes legislation to do that, Associate Grand Matrons keep having to find people to fill the slots required by our Constitution and Laws, even though the people appointed have nothing to do.

And then there are some committees where their work for the year is supposed to be chosen by the Worthy Grand Matron, but to be able to tell the committee members what that work will be at the time that they are asked to join the committee requires knowing what you are going to want a year later, since it is a strict rule that committee members are only asked in the year before their service begins.  This year, for example, I have asked a dozen or so people to serve because their service starts in 2012 as Co-Chairs and then they will be my Chairs in 2013.  But I will not be asking people whose service starts with my Grand Installation until next spring/summer.  However, that is no reason that I can't get the meat of the letters done now, when I have just a teensy, tiny bit less to do than the mountain of work that occurs in the AGM year, doing the calendar, getting Grand Officers and getting Deputies lined up.  So for those committees, you are evidently expected to dream up projects for them so they have something to do.

So as we spend hours and hours driving down the road, my AGP to be and I have been discussing what we will want various committees to do in addition to their stated duties in our Constitution and trying to put that discussion into writing.  On a few of the Committees that has been relatively easy because one of us has served on them and have a clear idea of how we would like to see them operate.  But on some of them, especially the ones where we are supposed to make up our own projects for them, it can be quite the challenge.  It is also hard sometimes to try to put it in writing in a way that will make sense to the people that will be getting the letters with these inserts in them.  I am glad that we've gotten started on talking all this out because I have a feeling that it is going to take us all winter to get these done so that they will be ready to go out next year when they should.

Of course, discussing these committee things also leads my AGP and me to discussions about lots of other topics, so it also seems that for every task we complete, three more pop up.  I never knew that the job was such a Hydra.  I guess we are going to have to find someone with a handy torch, to keep the heads from continuing to multiply.

Next weekend, I will be in Union City and Danville.